Samsung sees record sales from Galaxy line

Samsung's Galaxy smartphones pushed company profits to $5.9 billion ( £3.7 billion) in the third quarter, up 91 percent over the previous year, reports the BBC.

Samsung attributed its flagship Galaxy SIII to the company's success.

Samsung shipped a record 56.9 million smartphones -- the largest number ever shipped by a smartphone vendor in a single quarter -- and held 35 percent of the global smartphone market in Q3, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple maintained 17 percent marketshare and shipped 26.9 million smartphones last quarter.

“Samsung and Apple combined now account for over half of all smartphones shipped worldwide, up from around one-third a year ago," said Neil Shah, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Nokia, however, slipped from the top three global smartphone rankings for the first time last quarter, responsible for only 4 percent of the marketshare with 6.3 million smartphones shipped.

The fourth quarter could prove a major game changer for smartphone makers as we'll see the next slew of smartphones Monday with Windows Phone 8 variants from Nokia and HTC, and Google expected to show a new Nexus smarthphone from LG, as well as an updated Nexus 7 tablet and a larger tablet from Samsung.

Note that Samsung does not release numbers of smartphone sales. It's all guesswork. If you don't like the estimates of one analyst, feel free to chose another that you do like, or start your own company.